The buzz in India’s corporate circles is that Sebi chief Madhavi Buch is protecting Gautam Adani, his valuation and his reputation, the Congress alleged on Monday.
The accusations were levelled against Buch, the chief of India’s stock markets regulator Sebi, in a video posted on Rahul Gandhi’s YouTube channel.
The video features him and the Congress’s media and publicity department head Pawan Khera in which they talk about the alleged conflicts of interest of Buch.
“Corporate world mein yeh bata chal rahi hain [the buzz is that] she is blackmailing the government, she is blackmailing the prime minister,” Khera said in the video.
“So she is basically protecting him, his valuation, his reputation,” Rahul Gandhi replied.
“Institutional collapse has now given way to a more dangerous form of cronyism -- Adani Bachao,” Rahul said in the video. “The current regime is no longer merely encouraging monopolies, it’s actively concentrating the nation’s wealth in the hands of a few.”
Buch on Thursday skipped a meeting called by the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of Parliament to review the functioning of the regulatory body, citing “pressing reasons”.
PAC chairperson and Congress leader K.C. Venugopal postponed the meeting, leading to a war of words with the BJP members who accused Venugopal of taking unilateral decisions.
The Buch scandal goes deeper than imagined, Rahul said in the video, adding that maybe Buch, entrusted with safeguarding retail investors, has been manipulating the system to protect Adani’s interests and his inflated valuations.
Those entrusted with protecting common Indians and their investments have abrogated their responsibilities and are indulging in wide scale corruption and malpractice, he alleged. He also claimed that Adani may have had his hand in the rising defence import bill of India.
The Congress has raised these issues, is investigating these scams, and exposing the truth to the public, Gandhi said.
Earlier, in March 2023, the Parliament had disqualified Rahul Gandhi when he drew connections between the prime minister and Adani.
Rahul had said: “I have been disqualified because the prime minister is scared of my next speech. He is scared of the next speech that is going to come on Adani.”
In the video released on Monday, Khera is seen explaining to Gandhi the conflicts of interest allegations against Buch and saying that there are bigger powers behind her that were at work, referencing the Adani Group.
Sharing the video, the Congress said the role of Sebi chairperson is to maintain the security of the stock market and ensure investments of common Indians are not at risk. However, when the chairperson is involved in manipulating the market to benefit a single player then everyone’s money is at risk, it said.
“That is what is happening with the Madhabi Buch scandal. She has been placed in this position by PM Modi and HM Amit Shah to give Adani a clean chit in allegations of stock manipulation,” the Congress alleged.
Rahul Gandhi had released a video on Sunday too. In that video, Khera was seen explaining to Rahul his investigation into the Hindenburg-Adani-Buch issue as Rahul remarked that they had enough documents to bring down the government.
In the first video, Khera had said 40 crore investors in the stock market were at risk.